KIRKUS REVIEW

A debut historical novel chronicles
the lives of four young Parisians living under the specter of potential war.

In 1905, Robert d’Avillard is
studying civil engineering in Paris at the Ecole Polytechnique and is part of a
spirited young group of student intellectuals who gather regularly to discuss
political currents. The topic of the day is the alarming aggressiveness of
Germany and its encouragement of an independence movement in Morocco. Robert is
inspired by the patriotic commitment of a soldier, Col. Ferdinand Foch, who
implores him to join the military, which will desperately need talented engineers
to fortify its infrastructure in advance of an increasingly inevitable German
invasion. Meanwhile, Robert falls in love with Sarah Morozovski, a student of
law and political philosophy, who is fiercely antagonistic to the general
threat of militarism and sympathetic with socialist causes. But the two are
pulled apart just as their romance blooms, when Robert joins the corps of army engineers
and Sarah accepts a position working for a journalistic publication in Berlin.
In her absence, Robert begins a new relationship with Marie Bonneau, a young
musician, but even as their courtship hurtles toward eventual matrimony, he
never forgets Sarah, and those feelings are reignited when they meet again
years later in Paris. Robert’s cousin, Thomas, who was a student of philosophy
and theology, becomes a priest but also becomes fond of Marie just as
Sarah re-enters the scene. While the book follows the entangled romantic
complications of the four friends, the backbone of the story is really the
inexorable march toward World War I and the impact it has not only on the novel’s
protagonists, but also France and Europe. Whitaker skillfully captures the
crisis of impending world war and the national anxiety this created for a whole
generation of young French men and women whose lives were permanently
altered by its arrival. The author’s knowledge of the era’s geopolitical particulars
is beyond reproach. But the tale’s drama is deflated by the wooden, overly
genteel prose, especially evident in the dialogue. Consider Robert asking Sarah
out to dinner: “If you don’t feel that you need to go home to change, we can go
to a place that my family has known for years, which I think you will not only
find quite hygienic but also quite special.”

A sharp historical tableau of early-20th-century
France that is undermined by uneven writing.

Be the first to discover new talent!
Each week, our editors select the one author and one book they believe to be most worthy of your attention and highlight them in our Pro Connect email alert.
Sign up here to receive your FREE alerts.